California Air Resources Board

Would have suspended the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the application of the Cap-and-Invest program to transportation fuels, and the imposition of the tax on motor vehicle fuels for one year from the effective date of the bill. Would have required all savings from the suspensions to be passed on to an end consumer, with specified enforcement mechanisms. Would have required the Controller to transfer funding from the General Fund to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund equivalent to the sale of allowances to the suppliers of transportation fuels in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Would have also required the Controller to transfer funds from the General Fund to the Motor Vehicle Fuel Account in the Transportation Tax Fund equivalent to the loss in revenue from the suspension of the tax on motor vehicle fuels.  Was not heard in Senate Environmental Quality Committee. 

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Would have required the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) by January 1, 2028, in collaboration with CARB, other agencies, and the expert advisory committee on natural carbon sequestration, to develop an integrated nature-based climate strategy to link waste diversion goals with soil health practices on natural and working lands. Would have required recommendations to be consistent with the State's targets for natural carbon sequestration and nature-based solutions, the Scoping Plan, and CNRA's Natural and Working Lands Climate Strategy. The bill requires CNRA by January 1, 2028 to publish the strategy on its website and publish annual updates. Held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. 

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Would have created a rebuttable presumption to any suit or complaint brought under Section 17580.5 if the person's environmental marketing claim was based on the voluntary use of a carbon credit and was issued by a carbon crediting program approved by CARB or by the International Civil Aviation Organization. It also would have created a rebuttable presumption to any suit or complaint if the carbon crediting program met specified requirements, including adopting clean methodologies, defines and publicly discloses the level at which activities are allowed, establishes and publicly discloses procedures for carbon credit issuance and retirement, possesses specified mechanisms for tracking units, possesses specified requirements for verification, and program governance. Would have required CARB, within an unspecified number of days of January 1, 2028, to publish and maintain a list of carbon crediting programs that satisfy the bill's requirements. Finally, the bill would have set requirements for third-party credit validation and verification bodies for purposes of the bill and sunset January 1, 2032. Held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. 

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Would have required CARB to conduct a comprehensive assessment of how much decarbonized gaseous fuel the State will need to help reduce emissions in end uses that are hard to electrify by December 31, 2029. This assessment would have included an evaluation of policies and incentives to accelerate the production and use of decarbonized gaseous fuels, including consideration of economic viability and whether the policies are consistent with carbon reductions in the 2022 and 2027 Scoping Plans. Held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. 

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Would have voided amendments to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard that were adopted by the California Air Resources Board in November 2024. Was not heard in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.  

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Would have created the Refrigerant Stewardship and Recovery Act, which would have required producers of covered products, as defined, to form and join a producer responsibility organization (PRO). The PRO would have been required to submit a plan to CalRecycle for the handling of disposal of covered products. Was amended to be about recycling major appliances.

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Would have added a requirement that a dwelling unit must be able to stay at or below 82°F using a safe, nonmechanical cooling method to be tenantable. If an air conditioning unit is replaced, the bill requires landlords to dispose of unused refrigerants pursuant to CARB regulations. Was not heard in the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

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Would have required the director of CalRecycle to establish a working group to study alternative methods of methane reduction. The working group would have been required to submit its findings and recommendations to the director by January 1, 2029. Held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

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Would have required the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to convene an interagency task force to evaluate the role of alternative manure management practices in achieving certain goals, make specified findings and recommendations, and coordinate specified scenario modeling of alternative manure management practices. The bill would have authorized CARB to incorporate the task force's findings and recommendations into its Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCP) Reduction Strategy, the 2027 Scoping Plan, and other planning documents as appropriate. The bill also would have required CDFA to convene relevant government agencies to create a process for approving new projects that manage livestock and dairy manure. Held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

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Summary

Would have required CARB to determine whether using building materials with lower embodied carbon would be cost effective during the first 2-year period of their use compared to using conventional building materials before implementing embodied carbon regulations.If not, CARB must delay or suspend, as applicable, implementation of those provisions for no less than 5 years. Held on suspense in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

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